Basic Christianity - Chapter 6 "The Consequences of Sin"

In the last chapter of John Stott's Basic Christianity, we examined the reality, nature, and universality of human sin. In chapter 6, we will look at yet aspect of sin: it's consequences. Stott remarks, "We should like to leave this distasteful subject and pass on immediately to the good news of Christ's salvation, but we are not yet ready to do so. We need to grasp what the results of sin are before we can appreciate what God has done for us..."

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Is sin really such a serious thing? It's devastating consquences can be best understood when its effects are seen on God, on ourselves and on our fellow men.

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I. Alienation from God. "... the most terrible result of sin is that it cuts us off from God." Man is different from other creatures in that he was made in the image and God; he was given a soul, and is thus capable of knowing God and having a personal relationship with Him. Yet this God is a righteous Being, infinte in His moral perfection. Scripture lays much significance on this truth (Deuteronomy 4:24; Isaiah 33:14; 57:15; Habakkuk 1:13; 1 Timothy 6:15-16; Hebrews 12:29; 1 John 1:5-6)

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Further, all those men of God in the Bible who caught a glimpse of God's glory shrank from the spectacle in an overpowering consciousness of their own sinfulness. Consider Moses, when God appeared to him in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6); Job, to whom God spoke "out of the whirlwind" (Job 42:5-6); Isaiah, who had a vision of God as the King of Israel, surrounded by worshipping angels who sang of his glory and holiness (Isaiah 6:1-5); Ezekiel, who had a vision of God enthroned and enveloped in the brightness of fire and of the rainbow (Ezekiel 1:26-28); Saul of Tarsus, who, as he rode to Damascus, encountered the risen Jesus Christ, and was struck to the ground and blinded by a brilliant light that shone brighter than the noonday sun (Acts 9:1-9); the aged John, exiled on Patmos, who saw a vision of the risen and glorified Christ, whose "eyes were like a flaming fire" and whose "face was like the sun shining in full strength" (Revelation 1:9-17). ~

"If that curtain which veils the unspeakable majesty of God could be drawn aside but for a moment," says Stott, "we too should not be able to bear the sight. As it is, we only dimly perceive how pure and brilliant must be the glory of Almighty God. However, we know enough to realize that sinful man while still in his sins can never approach this holy God. A great chasm yawns between God in His righteousness and man in his sin. 'What partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? asks Paul... Sin inevitably brings separation, and this separation is 'death', spiritual death the severence of a person from the person of God, the only source of true life. 'The wages of sin is death.'" 

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Another thing to consider is this: if a person deliberately rejects Jesus Christ - who is the only one through whom we may find eternal life - he will spend eternity in hell. Hell is real: dreadfully and grimly real. Let no man say otherwise. Jesus Himself spoke of it. He called it the 'outer darkness' because it is just that: infinite and eternal separation from God, who is light. In the Bible, Hell is also called 'the second death' and 'the lake of fire', terms which describe symbolically the forfeiture of eternal life and the horrifying thirst of the soul which are "involved in irrevocable banishment from God's presence". 

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Until our sins are forgiven, we have no communion with the Almighty. We are 'lost' or 'dead' in the trespasses and sins we have committed. (Ephesians 2:1) We are exiles. Augustine spoke rightly when he said, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee."

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II. Bondage to Self. Sin not only estranges; it brings into captivity. It separates us from God and also enslaves us. Stott says, "We need now to consider the 'inwardness of sin'. It is more than an unfortuante outward act or habit; it is a deep-seated inward corruption. In fact, the sins we commit are merely outward and visible manifestations of this inward and invisible malady, the symptoms of a moral disease."

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Many times in the New Testament, we are described as 'slaves'. We may resent it, but it is the truth. Jesus emphatically stated that anyone who commits sin "is a slave to sin." Several times in his Epistles, the Apostle Paul describes the humiliating servitude into which sin brings us (Romans 6:17; Ephesians 2:3; Titus 3:3).

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We are in bondage - a deep, dark bondage from which we cannot free ourselves. We may have high ideals; we may want to live a good life. But we are chained down to our self-centeredness. We cannot do anything of ourselves. As Studdert Kennedy wrote,

"It is not finished, Lord,

There is not one thing done,

There is no battle of my life

That I have really won.

And now I come to tell Thee

How I fought to fail,

My human, all to human, tale

Of weakness and futility."

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"It is no use," Stott observes, "giving us rules of conduct; we cannot keep them. Let God go on saying 'Thou shalt not', yet we shall to the end of time. A lecture will not solve our problem; we need a Saviour. The education of the mind is not enough without a change of the heart."

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III. Conflict with Others. In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus summarizes the duty of man in these words: "You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

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Stott says, "It is important to observe that the first commandment concerns our duty to God, and not our duty to our neighbor. We are to love God first; and then we are to love our neighbor next, as ourselves. So God's order is that we put Him first, others next, self last. Sin is the reversal of that order. It is to put ourselves first, our neighbor next, and God somewhere in the background." Archbishop William Temple describes it this way:

"I am the center of the world I see; where the horizon is depends on where I stand... Education may make my self-centerdness less disasterous by widening by horizon of interest; so far it is like climbing a tower, which widens the horizon for physical vision, while leaving me still the center and standard of reference."

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Imagine how many quarrels and arguments might be avoided if only this self-centeredness were eliminated. We find it easier to be stubborn and fight than to listen and submit. We would rather strike back than turn the other cheek. James puts it well when he asks, "What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?" (James 4:1). Man is a self-centered creature, and this self-centeredness continually leads him into conflict with others. 

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In conclusion, Stott says, "What man needs is a radical change of nature, what Professor H.M. Gwatkin has called 'a change from self to unself'. Man cannot work it within himself. He cannot operate on himself. Again, he needs a Saviour." Jesus Christ is that Saviour. It is in Him that we must put our faith. But "faith is born of need. We shall never put our trust in Christ until we have first despaired of ourselves."

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Persevero,

Basic Christianity - Chapter 5 "The Fact and Nature Of Sin" Part 2

The Ten Commandments

I. You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me

"This is God's demand for man's exclusive worship. It is not necessary to worship the sun, the moon and the stars to break this law. We break it whenever we give to something or someone other than God Himself the first place in our thoughts or our affections." For some people, it might be sports or hobbies; for others, money and possessions. These things aren't wrong or sinful in and of themselves. But it is wrong and sinful when we idolize them, and give to them the place that only God should have. To perfectly keep this commandment would be, as Jesus said, to love the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind; to seek His will and glory always; to give Him the first place in thought, word, and deed. No one has ever fully kept this commandment save Jesus of Nazareth. All others have failed utterly. "What someone wrote of the Englishman is true of everyman: he is 'a self-made man who worships his creator'."

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II. You Shall Not Make For Yourself A Graven Image.

"If the first commandment concerns the object of our worship, the second concerns its manner. In the first, God demands our exclusive worship, and in the second our sincere and spiritual worship. For 'God is a spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth' (John 4:24)." Although we may have never made a graven image with our hands, what gruesome mental image have we conjured up in our minds? And although this commandment doesn't prohibit the use of all external forms of worship, it does imply that they are futile except there be inward reality as well. "We may have attended church; have we ever really worshipped God? We may have said prayers; have we ever really prayed? We may have read the Bible; have we ever let God speak to us through it and done what He said?" It is pointless to approach the Lord with our lips if our hearts are not sincere (Isaiah 29:13; Mark 7:6).

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III. You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord Your God in Vain.

"The name of God represents the nature of God... His Holy Name can be profaned by our loose language and most of us could do worse than revise our vocabulary from time to time. But to take God's name in vain is not just a matter of words, but also of thoughts and deeds." Whenever we our actions are contradictory to our beliefs, or our practice is not aligned with what we preach, we take God's name in vain. If we call Him "Lord" and then disobey Him, we are taking His name in vain. If we call Him "Father" and then doubt Him, we deny His name. This is hypocrisy.

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IV. Remember the Sabbath Day, to Keep It Holy.

"To set one day in seven apart is not just a human arrangement or a social convenience. It is God's plan... Man's body and mind need rest, and man's spirit needs the opportunity to worship. The sabbath is therefore a day of rest and worship." We are not only to keep it as such ourselves, for our own well-being, but we are to do everything we can for the common good to make certain that others do not have to work needlessly on this day. Sunday is holy, set apart unto God. It is His day, not ours. Therefore, we are to spend it in His way, and not in our way; we are to use it for His worship and service and not just for our own selfish pleasures.

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V. Honor Your Father and Your Mother.

"... our parents, at least while we are children, stand towards us in loco Dei: they represent God's authority. Yet often it is in their own home that people, young people especially, are at their most selfish and inconsiderate." It is too easy to be ungrateful and negligent, and to fall short of giving our parents the respect, affection, and honor they deserve.

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VI. You Shall Not Kill.

This commandment does not just prohibit outright murder. "If looks could kill, many would kill with a look. If murder can be committed by cutting words, many are guilty." In fact, Jesus clearly stated that to be angry with someone without a cause, and to be insulting, are matters just as grave. John writes, "Whoever who hates his brother is a murderer" (1 John 3:15). "Every loss of temper, every outburst of uncontrolled passion, every stirring of sullen rage, every bitter resentment and thirst for revenge - all these things are murder. We can kill by malicious gossip... studied neglect and cruelty... spite and jealously. We have probably all done so." Note that this commandment also forbids the taking of one's own life. Since God controls all things, and has chosen each person's circumstances, to commit suicide is to rebel against His authority.

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VII. You Shall Not Commit Adultery.

"... this commandment has a far wider application than just to unfaithfulness in marriage." It means that we are to be holy in heart, language, and conduct. This includes reading or watching impure things; speaking or jesting in a coarse, unseemly manner; or acting in any way that would compromise one's own purity or the purity of others. "This commandment in fact embraces every abuse of a sacred and beautiful gift from God."

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VIII. You Shall Not Steal.

"To steal is to rob a person of anything which belongs to him or is due to him. The theft of money or property is not the only infringment of this commandment. Tax evasion is robbery. So is dodging the customs. So is working short hours. What the world calls 'scrounging' the Bible calls 'stealing'. To overwork and underpay one's staff is to break this commandment." Yet these negative commandments also entail a positive counterpart. To truly abstain from killing, we must do everything in our power - so far as it is lawful and God-honoring - to nurture the health and protect our own lives and the lives of our fellow men. It is not enough to merely refrain from the act of adultery. The commandment requires the proper, healthy, and honorable behaviour of each sex towards the other. "Similarly, to keep from stealing is no particular virtue if one is miserly or mean. Paul was not satisfied that a thief should stop stealing; he had to start working. Indeed, he had to continue in honest labor until he found himself in a position to give to those in need." 

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IX. You Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor.

This commandment forbids not only perjury, but also slander, scandal, idle talk, lies, and deliberate exaggerations or distortions of the truth. "We can bear false witness by listening to unkind rumors as well as by passing them on, by making jokes at somebody else's expense, by creating false impressions, by not correcting untrue statements, and by our silence as well as by our speech."

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X. You Shall Not Covet.

"The tenth commandment is in some ways the most revealing of all. It turns the decalogue from an outward legal code to an inward moral standard. The civil law cannot touch us for covetousness but only for theft. For covetousness belongs to the inner life. It lurks in the heart and the mind. What lust is to adultery and temper is to murder, that covetousness is to theft." When a man covets, he not only breaks this commandment, but the first commandment also. He is allowing his desire for someone else's property to usurp the place of God. This is idolotry (Colossians 3:5b). By contrast, Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 6:6 that godliness with contentment is great gain.

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Taking a careful look at these commandments has revealed a hideous catalogue of sins. Stott says, "So much takes place beneath the surface of our lives, in the secret places of our minds, which other people do not see and which we manage to conceal even from ourselves. But God sees these things. His eye penetrates into the deep recesses of our hearts (Hebrews 4:13). He sees who we really are, and His law shows up our sins for what they really are. Indeed, it was the purpose of the law to expose sin (Romans 3:20)... nothing can convince us of our sinfulness like the lofty, righteous law of God."

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Persevero,

Basic Christianity - Chapter 5 "The Fact and Nature Of Sin" Part 1

Having examined and established the evidence for the unique deity of Jesus Christ, we will now move on to a new subject: the Fact and Nature of Sin. The reason why it is so essential that we examine this issue is simple: we not only need to know who Jesus was, but what he came to do. John Stott reminds us, "He is presented not simply as the Lord from heaven but also as the Saviour of Sinners. Indeed, the two cannot be separated, for the validity of His work depends on the divinity of His person."

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Yet before we can appreciate the work which Christ accomplished, we have to recognize who we are as well as who He is. After all, the work He did was done for our sakes. "It was the work of a person for persons, a mission undertaken for needy persons by the only person compentent to meet their need." Christ's compentence is found in His deity; our need is found in our sin. We have thoroughly examined His compentence; we must now take a honest, straightforward look at our sin. "Only then, after we have clearly grasped what we are, shall we be in a position to perceive the wonder of what He has done for us..."

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Of course, sin isn't a popular subject to deal with. Many would rather leave it alone. Christians are often critcized for giving the matter too much consideration. "But," Stott responds, "it is only because Christians are realists that they do so. Sin is not a convenient invention of parsons to keep them in their job; it is a fact of human experience." 

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In fact, Stott points out further, a lot of what we take for granted in "civilized" culture is founded upon the assumption of man's sinfulness. "Nearly all legislation has grown up because human beings cannot be trusted to settle their own disputes with justice and without self-interest. A promise is not enough; we need a contract. Doors are not enough; we have to lock and bolt them. The payment of fares is not enough; tickets have to be issued, inspected and collected. Law and order are not enough; we need police to enforce them." All of this owing to man's sin. We can't trust each other. We have to be protected from one another. It is a terrible reflection of human nature.

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We will first touch upon the universality of sin. This fact is one which is clearly and strongly affirmed by the biblical writers. Here are a few examples:

• Psalm 14:1-3; 53:1-3; 130:3; 143:2
• Ecclesiastes 7:20; 9:3
• Isaiah 53:6; 64:6
• Jeremiah 2:29; 16:12
• Micah 7:2
• Romans 3:10-12; 3:22 -23; 5:12;
• 1 John 1:8; 5:19

After reading such passages as these, the universal extent of sin is plain. But what is sin? What is its nature? The answer to this important question can be best summed up this way:

"Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the Law of God."

Thus, sin is both 1. a shortcoming (failure to conform or obey) and 2. a transgression (willful trespassing or disobedience). In other words, when we sin, we are not only falling short of God's requirements, but we are also willfully disobeying God's requirements. If I were to steal, my wrong would be twofold: first, I would be failing to love my neighbor as myself (Matthew 22:39); second, I would be deliberately disobeying the 8th Commandment "You Shall Not Steal" (Exodus 20:15).

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Of course, all this implies the existence of a moral standard, something by which we may measure ourselves and our actions. This standard is the Law of God, summed up in the Ten Commandments. But we fall far, far short of it. We are desperate sinners who have failed the test miserably.

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There are many people who reject this idea. They have their own "standards", their own "ideals", and believe that they attain them more or less. They do not indulge in much inward examination, nor in undue self-criticism. They know they have lapses every now and then; they are aware of certain character deficiencies; but they are not especially alarmed by them, and they consider themselves to be no worse than other men. Stott says, "All this is understandable enough, until we remember two things. First, our sense of failure depends on how high our standards are. It is quite easy to consider oneself good at high-jumping if the bar is never raised more than waist-high. Second, God concerns Himself with the thought behind the deed and the motive behind the action. Jesus clearly taught this in the Sermon on the Mount. With these two principals in mind, it should prove a healthy exercise to take the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 as our standard and see how very far short of it every man falls."

To be continued...

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Persevero,

Basic Christianity - Chapter 4 "The Resurrection of Christ" Part 2

III. The Lord Was Seen. Everyone who reads the Gospels knows that they contain some unusual stories of how Christ appeared to His disciples following His miraculous resurrection from the dead. We are told that He appeared to:

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-- Mary Magdalene (John 20:18; Mark 16:9)
-- Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5)
-- two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-15; Mark 6:12-13)
-- the ten gathered in the upper room (John 20:19-23; Mark 16:14-35)
-- the eleven (including Thomas) a week later (Mark 16:14; Luke 24:13-35)
-- more than five hundred brethren at one time, probably on the mountainside in Galilee (Matthew 28:16-20)
-- some disciples including Nathaniel, Peter, Thomas, James, and John by the Galilee lakeside (John 21:1-4; Matthew 28:16)
-- many on the Mount of Olives near Betheny at the time of the ascension (Acts 1:9-12; Luke 24:50-53; Mark 16:19-20)
-- Paul on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:4-5)

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And as Luke states at the beginning of the Acts that Christ 'presented Himself alive after His passion by many proofs, appearing to them (the apostles) during forty days', there may well have been other appearances, of which we have no surviving record.

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We cannot flippantly throw out this collection of living testimony to the resurrection of Jesus. An explanation must be found for these narratives. Only three seem possible...

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Explanation 1: were they inventions?
Stott says there is no need to devote much space to the refutation of this suggestion. "That the resurrection appearence stories are not deliberate inventions is as plain as could be." For one thing, the narratives are sober and unembelished. For another thing, they are vibrant, and enlivened by the in depth touches which sound like the work of an eye-witness. The accounts of the race to the sepulchre and of the walk to Emmaus are too striking and real to have simply been made up.

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"Besides," Stott continues, "no one could call them good inventions. If we had wanted to invent the resurrection, we might have done much better ourselves. We should have been careful to avoid the complicated jigsaw puzzle of events which the four Gospels together produce. We should have eliminated, or at least watered down, the doubts and fears of the apostles. We should probably have included a dramatic account of the resurrection itself (as do the fantastic apocryphal Gospels), describing the power and glory of the Son of God as He broke the bonds of death and burst from the tomb in triumph. But no one saw it happen, so we have no description of it. Again, we should scarcely have chosen Mary Magdalene as the first witness, if only to avoid Renan's sneer that 'la passion d'une hallucinee donne au monde un dieu ressusite'."

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An even greater objection to the invention theory is the fact that the apostles, and therefore the evangelists and the early church, were sublimely persuaded that Jesus Christ had risen. The entire New Testament, Stott reminds us, "breathes an atmosphere of certainty and conquest." Those who wrote it may have been misled, if you like; but they were certainly not intentionally misleading.

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Explanation 2: were the appearances themselves hallucinations?
This is a widely-held opinion, and of course, hallucinations are not an uncommon phenomenon. Hallucinations are most commonly associated with someone who is at least neurotic, if not in fact psychotic. It is impossible to say that the apostles were this sort of deranged and unbalanced people. Mary Magdalene might have been, but hardly brash Peter and doubting Thomas.

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Hallucinations have also been known to occur in perfectly normal people, and in such instances, two characteristics may frequently be detected. First, they occur as the high point to a period of inflated wishful thinking. Second, the conditions of time, place and mood are favorable. "There must be a strong inward desire and the predisposing outward setting," says Stott. When we go to the Gospel resurrection narratives, however, both these factors are absent...

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Far from wishful thinking, it was just the opposite. "When the women first found the tomb empty, they fled in 'trembling and astonishment' and were 'afraid'. When Mary Magdalene and the other women reported that Jesus was alive, the apostles 'would not believe it', and their words 'seemed to them an idle tale'. When Jesus Himself came and stood in their midst 'they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit', so that Jesus 'upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart'." Thomas obstinately declared that he would not believe unless he could actually see and feel the nail-marks for himself. When Jesus met the eleven and others by appointment in Galilee, 'they worshipped Him; but some doubted'. We do not have wishful thinking or naivete here. The disciples weren't blind, gullible fools, but instead, cautious, skeptical and 'slow of heart to believe'. And strange visions alone wouldn't have satisfied them. Their faith was built on the hard facts of verifiable reality.

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The outward circumstances were anything but favorable. "If the appearances," Stott points out, "had all taken place in one or two particularly sacred places, which had been hallowed by memories of Jesus, and their mood had been expectant, our suspicions might well be aroused. If we had only the story of the appearances in the upper room, we should have cause to doubt or question. If the eleven had been gathered in that special place where Jesus had spent with them some of His last earthly hours, and they had kept His place vacant, and were sentimentalizing over the magic days of the past, and had remembered His promises to return, and had begun to wonder if He might return and to hope that He would, until the ardour of their expectation was consummated by His sudden appearance, we might indeed fear that they had been mocked by a cruel delusion. However, we can easily see this was not the case. Indeed, an investigation of the... appearances reveals an almost studied variety in the circumstances of person, place and mood in which they occured."  

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It is not at all possible for us to simply dismiss these manifestations of the divine Lord as mere hallucinations of unstable minds. Therefore, if they weren't made-up stories or hallucinations, they only remaining alternative is that they actually happened. Christ, the risen Lord, was seen.

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IV. The Disciples Were Changed. It may be that the change of Christ's disciples is the greatest evidence of all for the resurrection, because it is completely sincere and artless. They do not bid us to look at themselves, as they bid us to look at the vacant sepulchre and the undisturbed graveclothes and the Lord whom they had seen. Yet we can discern the transformation without being told to look. The men who figure in the pages of the Gospels are new and different men in the pages of the Acts. Their Master's death on the cross left them feeling hopeless, disillusioned and utterly dejected. But in the Acts, they come forth fearless and bold men, ready to hazard their lives for the name of Christ and turn the world upside down. Stott asks, "What has made change? What acounts for their new faith and power, joy and love? Partly, no doubt, Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit; but then the Holy Spirit came only when Jesus had risen and ascended. It is as if the resurrection let loose mighty moral and spiritual forces. Two examples stand out..."

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The first is Simon Peter. During the passion of his Lord, he suffered a tragic eclipse, denying Christ three times. He cursed and swore as if he had never known the restraining influence of Jesus in his life and went out into the night, weeping bitterly. After the death of his Master, he joined the others hiding in the upper room, behind doors that were barred and bolted, fearful of retaliation from the Jews. "But when we turn one or two pages in the Bible, we see him standing... [and] preaching so boldly and so powerfully to a vast crowd that three thousand people believe in Christ and are baptized. We turn on to the next chapters of the Acts and we watch him defying the very Sanhedrin who condemned Jesus to death, rejoicing that he is counted worthy to suffer shame for His name, and later sleeping in his cell on the night before his expected execution. Simon Peter is a new man. The shifting sands have been blown away now; true to his nickname, he is a real rock now." 

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Or take James, who later became a leader in the Jerusalem church. He was one of "brethren of the Lord", who are represented throughout the Gospels as men who did not believe in Jesus (John 7:5). When we reach the opening chapters of the Acts, however, "the list which Luke gives of the assembled disciples concludes with the words 'and...His brothers'. James is evidently a believer now."

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These are the proofs of the resurrection of Jesus. The body had vanished. The graveclothes remained undisturbed. The Lord was seen. And the disciples were changed. "There is no other adequate explanation for these phenomena other than the great Christian affirmation 'the Lord is risen indeed'."

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In conclusion, Stott adds, "We have been occupied for three chapters in a critical investigation of the most absorbing personality of history, a modest carpenter from Nazareth who became a peasant preacher and died a criminal's death. His claims were stupendous. He seems to have been morally perfect. He rose from the dead. The cumulative weight of this evidence is all but conclusive. It makes eminently reasonable that last step of faith which brings us to our knees before Him and puts on our lips the mighty confession of doubting Thomas: 'My Lord and my God'."

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Persevero,

Scribe

Basic Christianity - Chapter 4 "The Resurrection of Christ" Part 1

In the last couple Basic Christianity posts, we've been examining the evidence that Jesus Christ was the sinless, perfect Son of God. This evidence, you will remember, consists in three things: the Claims of Christ; the Character of Christ; and the Resurrection of Christ. Again, it must be understood that no one argument is final or decisive; combined, however, these three arguments unfailingly direct us to the same conclusion. 

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Therefore, having already examined the first two pieces of evidence, we will proceed to examine Evidence # 3: The Resurrection of Christ. We will divide this piece of evidence into four points: the Body Had Gone; the Graveclothes Were Undisturbed; the Lord Was Seen; and the Disciples Were Changed. Before we embark on these, however, here are a few things to bear in mind:

• If true, the resurrection has great significance. John Stott says, "If Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, then He was beyond dispute a unique figure. It is not a question of His spiritual survival, nor of His physical resuscitation, but of His conquest of death and His resurrection to a new plane of existence altogether. We do not know of anyone else who has had this experience."
• We are not arguing that the resurrection of Christ establishes His divine nature, but rather, that it is consistent with it. "It is only to be expected that a supernatural person should come and leave the earth in a supernatural way. This is in fact what the New Testament teaches and what, in consequence, the church has always believed."
• Christ never predicted His death on the cross without adding that He would rise once more.  Furthermore, Christ spoke of His coming resurrection as a 'sign'. Paul says that Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power... by the resurrection from the dead". Also, Stott points out that "the earliest sermons of the apostles recorded in Acts repeatedly assert that by the resurrection God has reversed man's sentence and vindicated His Son".
• Concerning the resurrection, Luke, who is known to have a detailed and very accurate historian, declares there are 'many proofs'. Thomas Arnold called Christ's resurrection "the best attested fact in history", and Stott says, "... many impartial students have judged the evidence to be extremely good."

Those points considered, we will move on...

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 I. The Body Had Gone. You will remember that the resurrection narratives of the four Gospels commence with certain women visiting Jesus' tomb early on the morning of Easter Sunday. When they arrived, they were astounded to find that the body of the Lord had vanished. A few days later, the apostles started preaching that Jesus Christ was no longer dead, but had risen. It was the central theme of their message. But they could not have expected men to believe them if the body of Jesus was in fact still lying cold, still, and untouched in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb! No. The body was gone. There can be no disputing this fact. Rather, the question is how to explain it.

• First Theory: the women went to the wrong tomb. After all, it was still dark, and they were yet grieving over the death of their Lord. They could've easily, it is claimed, made a mistake.
• Answer: While this theory may appear plausible on the surface, Stott says it hardly bears examination. "To begin with, it cannot have been completely dark. It is true that John says the women came 'while it was still dark'. But in Matthew 28:1 it is 'toward dawn', while Luke says it was 'at early dawn', and Mark distinctly states that 'the sun had risen'." Furthermore, Stott points out, these women weren't fools. At least two of them had witnessed where Joseph and Nicodemus had laid the corpse of Jesus. They had even watched the entire process of the burial, 'sitting opposite the sepulchre'. The same two women (Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus) returned again at dawn, this time bringing with them Salome, Joanna, and 'the other women', so that even if one had mistaken the path or the tomb, she would probably have been corrected by the others. "Besides, no mere sentiment brought them so early to the tomb. They were on a practical mission. They had bought spices and were going to complete the annointing of the Lord's body, since the approach of the sabbath had made the work so hasty two days previously. These devoted and businesslike women were not the kind to be easily decieved or to give up the task they had come to do." Also, even if they had made a mistake about the tomb, would the same mistake have been made by Peter and John, who ran to verify the story? And what about the others who undoubtedly came later, including Joseph and Nicodemus themselves?
• Second Theory: the swoon theory. Those who maintain this view say that Jesus didn't really die on the cross, but only fainted. He then revived in the tomb, left it, and reappeared to His disciples.
• Answer: This explanation is full of problems. The evidence thoroughly contradicts it. Pilate, though surprised at how quickly Jesus died, was sufficiently convinced by the centurion's assurance to allow Joseph to remove the body from the cross. The centurion was certain, because he must have been there when 'one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water' (John 19:34). So Joseph and Nicodemus took down the body, wrapped it in graveclothes, and buried it in Joseph's tomb. Stott says, "Are we then seriously to believe that Jesus was all the time only in a swoon? That after the rigours and pains of trail, mockery, flogging, and crucifixion He could survive thirty-six hours in a stone sepulchre with neither warmth nor food nor medical care? That He could then rally sufficiently to perform the superhuman feat of shifting the boulder which secured the mouth of the tomb, and this without disturbing the Roman guard? That then, weak and sickly and hungry, he could appear to His disciples in such a way as to give them the impression that He had vanquished death? That He could go on to claim that He had died and risen, could send them into all the world and promise to be with them unto the end of time? That He could live somewhere in hiding for forty days, making occasional surprise appearences, and then finally disappear without any explaination? Such credulity is more incredible than Thomas' unbelief."
• Third Theory: thieves stole the body.
• Answer: What possible motive would they have had for doing so? How could they have hoodwinked the Roman guard? Why would the thieves steal the body and leave the graveclothes behind?
• Fourth Theory: the disciples removed the body. Matthew tells us that this is the very sort of rumour which was spread by the Jews from the earliest days. After the death and burial of Jesus, the chief priests and Pharisees came to Pilate and asked for a guard to be placed over the tomb, lest 'His disciples go and steal Him away' (Matthew 27:62-65). Pilate consents to their request. A heavy stone is rolled over the mouth of the tomb and a guard is set. Matthew goes on to describe how such precautions could not prevent the resurrection. Shortly thereafter, the guards returned to the city to report what had happened. After a consultation amongst themselves, the chief priests and Pharisees bribed the soldiers, and commanded them to spread the story that Jesus' disciples had come by night while they were asleep and stolen His body (Matthew 28:11-15).
• Answer: This story doesn't hold water. First of all, is it likely that a picked guard, whether Roman or Jewish, would all sleep on duty when strictly ordered to watch? Not very. "And even supposing the disciples could have suceeded in removing the Lord's body," Stott points out, " there is a psychological consideration which is enough to discredit the whole theory. We learn from the first part of the Acts that in their early preaching the apostles concentrated on the resurrection. 'You killed him, but God raised Him, and we are witnesses', they kept saying (Acts 2:23-24). Are we then to believe that they were proclaiming what they knew to be a deliberate lie? If they had themselves taken the body of Jesus, to preach His resurrection was to spread a known, planned falsehood. They not only preached it; they suffered for it. They were prepared to go to prison, to the flogging post and to death for a fairy-tale.  This simply does not ring true. It is so unlikely as to be impossible... They may have been decieved if you like, but they were not deceivers. Hypocrites and marytrs are not made of the same stuff." 
• Theory Five: the Roman or Jewish authorities took Jesus' body into their own custody. It is certain they would have had motive enough to do so. They had heard Jesus proclaim that He would rise again, and so, to forestall any trickery, they took the precaution of confiscating the body.
• Answer: When this explaination is carefully considered, however, it falls to pieces. We see that within a few weeks of Jesus' death the Christians were boldly declaring His resurrection. The news spread quickly. The new movement threatened to undermine the bulwarks of Judaism and to disrupt the peace of Jerusalem. "The Jews feared conversions; the Romans feared riots." All the authorities had to do was produce the body and state what they had done. But they didn't. They were silent. Instead they resorted to violent methods of supressing the new movement. They arrested, flogged, imprisoned and killed. But all this was unnecessary if they had the body of Jesus in their possession. "The church was founded on the resurrection. Disprove the resurrection, and the church would have collapsed. But they could not; the body was not in their possession. The authorities' silence is as eloquent a proof of the resurrection as they apostles' witness."

None of these theories is a satisfactory explaination for the emptiness of the tomb and the disappearence of the body. There is no evidence to back any of them up. Therefore, for lack of "any alternative explanation, perhaps we may be forgiven if we prefer the simple and sober narrative of the Gospels, describing the events of the first Easter Day. The body of Jesus was not removed by men; it was raised by God". 

~

II. The Graveclothes Were Undisturbed. "It is a remarkable fact," continues Stott, "that the narratives which say that the body of Jesus was gone also tell us that the graveclothes had not gone." John particularly lays emphasis on this fact, as it was he who accompanied Peter on the early morning race to the tomb. The account he gives of the incident (John 20:1-10) has the definite marks of personal experience.  He outdistanced Peter, but when he arrived at the tomb, he only looked in, until Peter came and entered it. 'Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed' (John 20:8). We then ask: What did he see which made him believe? "The story suggests that it was not just the absence of the body, but the presence of the graveclothes and, in particular, their undisturbed position."

~

We will now attempt to reconstruct the story. John tells us (John 19:38-42) that Joseph asked Pilate for the body of Jesus; meanwhile, Nicodemus 'came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds' weight''. Together, they then 'took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews'. They wound the linen "bandages" around His body, sprinkling the powdered spices into the folds. A seperate cloth would have been used for the head. Thus they wrapped His body and head, leaving His face and neck uncovered, according to oriental practice. This done, they laid His body on a slab of stone which had been cut out of the side of the cave-sepulchre.

~

"Now supposing we had been present in the sepulchre  when the resurrection of Jesus actually took place. What should we have seen? Should we have seen Jesus begin to move, and then yawn and stretch and get up? No. We do not believe that He returned to this life. He did not recover from a swoon. He had died, and He rose again. His was a resurrection, not a resuscitation. We believe that he passed miraculously from death into an altogether new sphere of existence." What then should we have seen? Stott contends, "We should suddenly have noticed that the body had disappeared. It would have 'vaporized', being transmuted into something new and different and wonderful. It would have passed through the graveclothes, as it was later to pass through closed doors, leaving them quite untouched and almost undisturbed. Almost, but not quite. For the body cloths, under the weight of 100 lbs. of spices, once the support of the body had been removed, would have subsided or collapsed, and would now be lying flat. A gap would have appeared between the body cloths and the head napkin, where His face and neck had been. And the napkin itself, because of the complicated criss-cross pattern of the bandages, might well have retained its concave shape, a crumbled turban, but with no head inside it." A careful look at the text of John's narrative (John 20:6-7) suggests that it is just these three characteristics of the discarded graveclothes which he noticed. 

~

It is not difficult to imagine the scene which the disciples came upon when they reached the tomb: the stone slab, the collapsed graveclothes, the empty shell of the head napkin and the gap between the two. It is no wonder they 'saw and believed'. One look at the graveclothes was proof of the reality, and indicative of the nature, of Christ's resurrection. They hadn't been folded or manipulated by the hand of any human being. "They were like a discarded chrysalis from which the butterfly has emerged."

~

Stott adds, "That the state of the graveclothes was intended to be visible, corrobarative evidence for the resurrection is further suggested by the fact that Mary Magdalene (who had returned to the tomb after bringing the news to Peter and John) 'stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet' (John 20:11-12) Presumably this means that they sat on the stone slab with the graveclothes between them. Both Matthew and Mark add that one of them said, 'He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where He lay' (Matthew 28:6; Mark 16:6)...these allusions to the place where Jesus' had lain, emphasized by both the position and the words of the angels, at least confirms what the understanding of the evangelists was: the position of the clothes and the absence of the body were concurrent witnesses to His resurrection."

To be continued...

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Persevero,

Scribe

Basic Christianity - Chapter 3 "The Character of Christ"

In the last Basic Christianity post, we began looking at the evidence that Jesus was in fact the sinless, perfect Son of God. This evidence, you will remember, consists in three things: the Claims of Christ; the Character of Christ; and the Resurrection of Christ. "No one argument is conclusive," John Stott says. "But the three converging lines point unfalteringly to the same conclusion." 

~

Therefore, in this post, we will examine Evidence #2: The Character of Christ. We will divide this second piece of evidence into four points: What Christ Himself Thought; What Christ's Friend's Said; What Christ's Enemies Conceded; and What We Can See for Ourselves...

~

I. What Christ Himself Thought. Jesus directly stated on one or two occasions that He was without sin. When a woman caught in the very act of adultery was brought before him (John 8:3-11), he issued a challenge to her accusers: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Needless to say, no stones were thrown, and the woman's accusers slunk away. On another occasion, Jesus boldly defied those that opposed Him with these words, "Which of you convinceth (convicts) me of sin?" (John 8:46). Stott says, "They slipped away when He accused them. But when He invited them to accuse Him, He could stay and bear their scrutiny. They were all sinners; He was without sin."

~

"Similarly," Stott continues, "by the very nature of His teaching, He placed Himself in a moral category by Himself... Jesus assumed His uniquenness unself-consciencely. He did not need to draw attention to it. It was a fact so obvious to Him that it hardly required emphasis. It was implied rather than asserted." Consider the following examples...

• All other men were lost sheep - He had come as the Good Shepherd to seek and to save them (Luke 19:10; John 10:11,14)
• All other men were sick with the disease of sin - He was the doctor that had come to heal them (Luke 5:31-32)
• All other men were plunged in the darkness of sin and ignorance - He was the light of the world (John 3:19; 8:12; 9:5)
• All other men were sinners - He was born to be their Saviour and would shed His blood in death for the forgiveness of their sins (Matt. 20:28; 26:28)
• All other men were hungry - He was the bread of life (John 6:35)
• All other men were dead in trespasses and sins - He could be their life now and their resurrection hereafter. (John 11:25)

"All these metephors express the moral uniqueness of which He was conscious."

~

Furthermore, Stott points out "that although we are told of the temptations of Jesus, we hear nothing of His sins." Jesus Christ:

• never confesses His sins or asks for forgiveness, although He tells His disciples to do so.
• shows no consciousness of moral failure.
• appears to have no feeling of guilt and no sense of estrangement from God

This is remarkable for two particular reasons:

1. Jesus possessed a keen moral discernment. It is often recorded of Him that He read the inner thought and questions of the crowds that followed Him. "His clear perception," says Stott, "led Him fearlessly to expose the duplicity of the Pharisees. He hated their hypocrisy. He pronounced woes upon them as thunderous as those of the Old Testament prophets. Ostentation and pretence were an abomination to Him. Yet His penetrating eye saw no sin in Himself."
2. His self-conscious purity is unlike the experience of all saints and mystics. "The Christian knows that the nearer he approaches God, the more he becomes aware of his own sin.. Yet Jesus Christ, who lived more closely to God than anybody else has done, was free from all sense of sin."

II. What Christ's Friends Said. It is clear that Jesus believed Himself to be sinless, just as He believed Himself to be the Messiah and God's Son. But, some might argue, couldn't He have been mistaken? What about His disciples? Did they share His opinon of Himself?

~

There are those who call Christ's disciples poor witnesses; biased men who presented Christ better than He really was. However, Stott says that "in this the apostles have been greatly maligned. Their statements cannot be so lightly dismissed. There are several reasons why we may confidently rely on their evidence..."

1. They lived in close contact with Christ for about 3 years. 
2. They were Jews who had been trained since infancy in Old Testament doctrines, one of which is the universality of human sin (Isaiah 53:6; Psalm 14:3): thus they would not easily attribute sinlessness to anyone.
3. Their tesimony is indirect: they do not set out to establish the truth that Christ was free of sin. Their remarks are asides. As they are discussing some other subject, they add almost as a parenthesis a reference to His sinlessness. For example, Peter speaks of Jesus as 'a lamb without blemish or spot' (1 Peter 1:19) who 'committed no sin; no guile was found on His lips' (1 Peter 2:22). John clearly states that all men are sinful and corrupt, but goes on to say that in Christ, who was manifested to take away our sins, there is no sin (I John 1:8-10; 3:5)).

III. What Christ's Enemies Conceded. Some people may feel themselves on "safer ground" when it comes to considering what Christ's enemies thought of Him. After all, they were certainly not biased in His favor. We can read four of their criticisms of Jesus in Mark's gospel (see 2:1 - 3:6):

1. They accused Him of blasphemy. Jesus had forgiven a man's sins, and they considered this to be an arrogant invasion of divine authority. However, this begs a question. Stott points out, "If He were indeed divine, to forgive sins was His prerogotive."
2. They accused Him of evil associations. He dealt with publicans, ate with sinners, and let harlots approoach Him. "No Pharisee," says Stott, "would dream of such behaviour. He would gather his skirts around him and recoil from such scum. He would have thought himself righteous for doing so, too. He would not appreciate the grace and tenderness of Jesus who, though 'separate from sinners', yet earned the honored title 'friend of sinners'."
3. They accused His religion of being frivolous. He didn't fast as the Pharisees did, or even the disciples of His friend John the Baptist did. He was called a 'glutton and a drunkard' who 'came eating and drinking' (Matthew 11:19). "Such an attack hardly deserves a serious refutation. That Jesus was full of joy is true, but there can be no doubt that He took religion seriously," Stott tells us.
4. They accused Him of sabbath-breaking. He would heal people of their illnessess on the sabbath, and His disciples even walked through cornfields on the sabbath, plucking, rubbing, and eating corn, which the Pharisees forbade as tantamount to reaping and threshing. "Yet no one," Stott says, "can doubt that Jesus was submissive to God's law. He obeyed it Himself, and in controversy He refferred His opponants to it is the arbiter. He also confirmed that God had made the sabbath, and that He made it for man's benefit. But being himself 'lord of the sabbath' (Luke 6:5), He claimed the right to set aside the false traditions of men and to give to God's law its true interpretation." 

It is plain that all of these accusations are either trivial or question-begging. Therefore, when Jesus was on trial for his life, his enemies were forced to hire liars and false witnessess against Him. "But even then, they didn't agree with one another. In fact, the only charge they could manufacture against Him was not moral but political. And as the stately prisoner came before men for a verdict, again and again he was pronounced righteous. Pilate...publically washed his hands and declared himself 'innocent of this man's blood' (Matthew 27:24). Herod could find no fault with Him (Luke 23:15). Judas the traitor, filled with remorse, returned the thirty pieces of silver to the priests with the words 'I have sinned in betraying innocent blood' (Matthew 27:3-4). The penitent thief on the cross rebuked his confederate for his abuse and added, 'this man has done nothing wrong' (Luke 23:41). Finally, the centurion, having watched Jesus suffer and die, exclaimed, 'Certainly this man was innocent' (Luke 23:47)."

~

IV. What We Can See For Ourselves. In conclusion, Stott reminds us that "in assessing the character of Jesus, we do not need to rely only on the testimony of others; we can make our own estimate. The moral perfection which was quietly claimed by Him, confidently asserted by His freidns and reluctantly acknowledged by His enemies, is clearly exhibited in the Gospels." Consider the following examples...

• Whether scaling the dizzy heights of success or plunged into the depths of bitter rejection alone, He is the same Jesus. He is consistent. He has no moods. He does not change.
• There is in Him no trace of the crank. He believes ardently what He teaches, but He is not a fanatic. His doctrine is unpopular, but He is not eccentric.
• There is as much evidence for His humanity as there is for His divinity. He gets tired. He needs to sleep and eat and drink like other men. He experiences the human emotions of love and anger, joy and sorrow. He is fully human. Yet He is no mere man.
• Above all, He was unselfish... Although believing Himself to be divine, He did not put on airs or stand on His dignity. He was never pompous. There is no touch of self-importance about Jesus. He was humble... He exhibited both the greatest self-esteem and the greatest self-sacrifice. He knew Himself to be Lord of all, but He became their servant. He said He was going to judge the world, but He washed His apostles' feet.

"Such a man is altogether beyond our reach. He succeeded where we invariably fail. He had complete self-mastery. He never retaliated. He never grew resentful or irritable. He had such control of Himself that, whatever men might think or say or do, He would deny Himself and abandon Himself to the will of God and the welfare of mankind. 'I seek not my own will', He said, and 'I seek not my own glory'. 

~

"This utter disregard of self in the service of God and man is what the Bible calls love. There is no self-interest in love.The essence of love is self-sacrifice. The worst of men is adorned by an occasional flash of such nobility, but the life of Jesus irradiated it with a never-fading incadescent glow."

~

"Jesus was sinless because He was selfless. Such selflessness is love. And God is love."

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Persevero,

Scribe

Basic Christianity - Chapter 2 "The Claims of Christ"

Note: as you read this, keep in mind that Basic Christianity is addressed mainly to the skeptics, those who doubt or challenge Christianity. Remembering this fact will put many of Stott's statements into perspective...

~

In Chapter 2 of Basic Christianity, John Stott begins by stressing this all-important fact: when enquiring into Christianity, we must begin with Jesus Christ Himself. We can't start our search anywhere else. Here are the two principle reasons why:

~

I. "Essentially, Christianity is Christ. The person and work of Christ are the rock upon which the Christian religion is built. If He is not who He said He was, if He did not do what He said He had come to do, the foundation is undermined and the whole superstructure is collapsed.  Take Christ from Christianity, and you disembowel it. Christ is the centre of Christianity; all else is circumference. We are not concerned primarily to discuss the nature of His philosophy, the value of His system, or the quality of His ethic. Our concern is fundamentally with the character of His person. Who was He?"

~

II. "If Jesus Christ can be shown to have been a uniquely divine person, many other problems begin naturally to be solved. The existence of God is proved and the character of God revealed if Jesus was divine. Again questions about man's duty and destiny, life after death, the purpose and authority of the Old Testament and the meaning of the cross begin to be answered because Jesus taught about these things, and His teaching must be true if His person was divine."

~

This said, we will use the Stott continues by reminding us that "our purpose is to marshal evidence to prove that Jesus was the Son of God... only so could He be worthy not just of our admiration but of our worship."

~

This evidence, Stott tells us, "is at least threefold: it concerns the claims He made, the character He displayed and His resurrection from the dead. No one argument is conclusive. But the three converging lines point unfalteringly to the same conclusion."

~

So, right now we'll start with Evidence #1: the Claims of Christ. These can be divided into four different kinds of claim: His Self-Centered Teaching, His Direct Claims, His Indirect Claims, and His Dramatized Claims...

~

I. His Self-Centered Teaching. "The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus," Stott points out, "is that He was constantly talking about Himself." This instantly sets Him apart from other religious leaders, who were always self-effacing rather than self-advancing. Jesus declared... 

• that Abraham had rejoiced to see His day (John 8:56)
• that Moses had written about Him (John 5:46)
• that the Scriptures bore witness to Him (John 5:39)
• that in the three great divisions of the Old Testament (the law, the prophets, and the writings) there were things concerning Him (Luke 24:27,44)
• that to believe in Him was man's chief duty and that to deny Him was man's chief sin (John 8:24) 
• that the Holy Spirit would testify of Him (John 15:26)  
• that those who would believe on Him would find eternal life. (John 3:36)   

II. His Direct Claims. Jesus did not hesitate to make very direct claims concerning His deity, His Messiahship, and His oneness with God Father. Stott says, "So close was His identification with God [the Father] that it was natural for Him to equate man's attitude to Himself with  his attitude to God. Thus, 

• to know Him was to know God (John 14:7)
• to see Him was to see God (John 14:9; 12:45)
• to believe in Him was to believe in God (John 12:44; 14:1)
• to receive Him was to receive God (Mark 9:37)
• to hate Him was to hate God (John 15:23)
• to honor Him was to honor God. (John 5:23) 

These are some of the general claims which Jesus made to a unique relationship with God [the Father]." 

~

III. His Indirect Claims. "Christ's claim to deity," Stott says, "was advanced as forcefully by indirect as by direct means. Of these, four may be mentioned..."

• He claimed the power to forgive sins (Mark 2:1-12; Luke 7:36)
• He claimed the power to bestow life (John 6:35; 11:25; 14:6; 15:4-5; 17:2; 5:21)
• He claimed the power to teach the truth (John 7:46; Luke 4:32; Matthew 7:28-29)
• He claimed the power to judge the world (John 5:22, 28-29; Matthew 25:31-46)

All of these are powers which God alone possesses. Therefore, by declaring these powers to be His powers, He declares Himself to be divine.

~

IV. His Dramatized Claims. By this, we are referring to the recorded miracles of Jesus Christ.  Stott tells us, "This is no place for a thorough discussion of the possibility and purpose of miracles. It is sufficient to indicate that the value of Christ's miracles lies less in their supernatural character than in their spiritual significance. They were 'signs' as well as 'wonders'. They were never performed selfishly or senselessly. Their purpose was not to show off or compel submission. They were not so much demonstrations of physical power as illustrations of moral authority. They were are in fact the acted parables of Jesus. They exhibit His claims visually. His works dramatize His words." Here are several examples...

• The feeding of the five-thousand (John 6:1-13) advanced Christ's claim to satisfy the hunger of the human heart (John 6:35).
• The opening the eyes of a man born blind (John 9:1-7) demonstrated Christ's claim to open men's eyes to see and know God (John 9:39)
• The raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:14-45) illustrated Christ's claim to be the life of a believer before death and the resurrection of a believer after death (John 11:25-26)

Conclusion
At the end of Chapter 2, John Stott reminds us that we cannot eliminate these claims from the teaching of Jesus Christ; neither can we say that these claims were merely inventions or exaggerations. "They are widely and evenly distributed in the Gospels and the sources of the Gospels, and the portrait is too consistent and too balanced to have been imagined." 

~

Of course the claims in and of themselves are not evidence enough of deity. They could have been false. However, we must find some explanation for them. "We can no longer regard Jesus as simply a great teacher if He was completely mistaken in one of the chief subjects of His teaching - Himself." 

~

We must then inevitably ask the question 'Was Jesus an impostor? Did He claim a divine authority He had no right to claim?' "This," Stott says, "is very difficult to believe. There is something guileless about Jesus. He hated hypocrisy in others and was transparently sincere Himself." 

~

'Was He then mistaken?' we ask, 'Did He simply have deluded notions about Himself?' Stott answers, "This possibility has its protagonists, but one suspects that their delusion is greater than His. Jesus does not give the impression of abnormality which one expects to find in the deluded. His character appears to support His claims, and it is in this sphere that we must now pursue our investigation."

* * *

Persevero,

Scribe